The MARCH Method
A ninety-second tool that teaches a child to tell a thought from a fact.
Five steps, one page, no training required. Built for classrooms, counseling offices and kitchen tables by a former teacher, principal and assistant superintendent — and grounded in the ANT framework developed by Dr. Daniel Amen.
Get the free one-page toolThe behavior is never the beginning.
Before the refusal, before the stomachache that sends a student to the nurse for the fourth time this month, before the capable kid who suddenly "can't do" math — there is a thought. Usually an inaccurate one. And almost no one has ever taught that student to notice it.
Dr. Daniel Amen named them ANTs: Automatic Negative Thoughts. They run in predictable patterns. A pattern that can be recognized can be interrupted — and a nine-year-old can learn to do the interrupting.
That is the whole idea. Not calming down. Not positive thinking. Checking a thought against the evidence, in about ninety seconds, with a pencil.
M-A-R-C-H
Five steps. About ninety seconds. Tap any step to open it.
M — Mark it.
A — Ask: is it true?
R — Replace it with what's accurate.
C — Catch it next time.
H — Head it out.
Mark it, ask it, replace what's true —
Catch it early, and head it on through!
MARCH is a self-regulation tool, not a treatment, and not a substitute for assessment. If anxiety is affecting sleep, appetite, attendance or functioning for weeks at a time, that is a referral to a counselor or clinician. Refer early.
The Ninety-Second MARCH Tool
One page. Five steps. Room to write. Print a class set, put it in a counseling folder, or stick it on the refrigerator.
Free, and free to copy for your classroom, caseload, team or family. No attribution required, no strings.
Send me the tool
Opens straight away. One email follows with the link so you always have it.
Built for the people who are actually in the room
Fifteen minutes of prep. No certification, no script to memorize, no curriculum binder.
Classroom teachers
An eight-week sequence, one step and one practice page a week, ten to fifteen minutes each. Fits a morning meeting, an advisory block, or the last quarter hour on a Friday. Tier 1 support, whole class, no pull-out.
Counselors and student services
A one-page tool a student can run in session and take home. Useful as a small-group protocol, a check-in-check-out anchor, or a common language a whole building can share so the language does not reset every time the student changes rooms.
Administrators
A one-day staff training that sends every adult in the building home with the same five words and a class set of materials. Designed for small and rural schools, where the counselor is also the testing coordinator and half the staff is new this year.
Who wrote this
Dr. Beau Abernathy has spent three decades in public schools as a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent in Texas and Alaska, including village schools reachable only by plane or ferry. He holds Alaska certification as a teacher, principal and superintendent, has served as a director of federal grants, and has taught at the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 2016.
The method draws on the ANT framework developed by psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen and on the clinical work of the late Dr. Frank Minirth, with whom he co-authored several books. It was built for the constraint he kept running into as a principal: the adult who needs the tool is a first-year teacher with twenty-two students and no time.
Bring it to your school
Tell me your setting and roughly how many students or staff, and I will tell you honestly whether this fits — including when it doesn't.
I know what a curriculum director is actually working with: a fixed budget, a calendar with two open PD days, and a staff that has sat through a lot of trainings. I will give you a straight answer about scope, cost and what it does not do.
No sales sequence follows this form. It comes to me and I answer it.
Tell me about your school
I read these myself and answer personally.
Start with the tool.
It costs nothing, it takes ninety seconds, and a student can use it tomorrow morning.
Send me the free tool